Disney . . . Not A Family For Everyone
Posted: Saturday, October 01, 2011
by Octavia Hansen
Octavia Hansen
Disney can be a VERY DIFFICULT company to work for. They want a certain image and constant projection of the Disney image. You can be fined, put on notice and fired if you don't smile enough. And there are a lot of rules about what you wear, how you wear it and what is not acceptable. Unless you are in management and away from the crowds, image is everything and it's Gestapo enforced.
If you can put up with these things, they do pay well and health/dental plans are liberal. They were also one of the first corporations to extend benefits to live-in couples and same sex relationships/marriages. Though it has never been publically confirmed, there has always been quiet talk that Walt Disney was gay. Makes a lot of sense, guy wanting a magic kingdom . . . Still, one can be an artistic visionary and not be gay.
A few years ago there was a possible business deal of Disney buying some of the Renaissance Festivals, including the largest one in Texas near Houston. Even before the deal was on the table, there were stipulations against costumes, suggestive shows, personnel and even some of the merchandise. To every renny's (those who work and live at renaissance festivals) delight, the deal did not go through. It would have eliminated EVERYTHING that made the festival what it was. It also would have done away with camping for both performers, workers, rennies and families in their designated fields. Drum circles, bon fires and just about anything else the pagan adults go to the festival for would have been banned. A full moon is a major event at a renaissance faire.
Costuming would have been the first to change. No tight bodice with overflowing bosom, every wenches' most popular attribute. Belly dancers, if they were allowed at all were to be covered, almost in a burka. Isn't that the passin and flirtation of a belly dancer? To see her body undulate like an inviting serpent? And even though cod pieces were fashionable, it was not to be allowed by Disney. And all the pieces that were not considered a "period" piece would hav been banned, this included most glasses, no cigarettes, no showing zippers and no polyester. Yeah, when was the last time anyone told you that you were not wearing the right cloth. It was not released to the public if men's pants would still have zippers, or would they all be button or tie? Have to plan a bathroom break in advance, no last minute dash would have been possible.
Next to go would be a lot of the shows, and some banter in other shows. Renaissance festivals, though billed as family entertainment, were full of adult humor. Adolescent kids really liked it, some of it bordered on obscene, some of it was just gross. With an act call Puke and Snot, what did anyone expect? And my personal favorites, Iris and Rose (Wild and Thorny) would have had to completely rewrite their act before even considered appropriate for all ages. Their charm is their wit, their bawdy songs and constant double entendre.
Considering the amount of violence of the middle ages, were the jousters safe? Would jesters be allowed their jest? Would even the souvenirs be questioned as to family friendly? Where does it end. Would it end? If all these things were taken away, it would no longer be a renaissance festival.
Not long ago, Disney was to remake Romeo and Juliet, except they weren't to disobey their parents, they weren't going to die and it was all to be a happy ending. Well, then it's not Romeo and Juliet, then, is it?
This was a few years ago and the long shadow of Disneyland with a Robin Hood theme has since vanished in the Texas piney woods. Some say it still lingers, ready to pounce when there isn't a good season, when this generation of renaissance patrons grow out of their fantasy weekend getaway into a more respectable life of yardwork and back yard barbeques. Some festival folk think it will never change, or if it ends at all, everything will become another theatre ghost town, like drive in movies. Since most sites are built with wood, they would decay, returning to the forest soil from whence they came, serving as food for the next life form to inhabit the once fantasy land in a sea of conservatives and housing developments. Right now, the season goes on. There are happy sounds in the forest, good food, fine costumes, the sounds of love making fill the tents and campers after a beautiful dream day spent in the 1600s.
Sometimes, near the end of a successful season, when the air is turning cold and the tents are quiet, around the last campfires of the night, the frightening tale of a Disney takeover is whispered and a collective shudder ripples through the campground of what might have been. Oooooh, I scare myself . . .
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